ALLEGED LIBELS

Wanganui Chronicle, 31 October 1946, Page 6

ALLEGED LIBELS

COURT-MARTIAL OF BRITISH OFFICER Cairo, Oct. 28. Alleging libellous statements about Sir John Shaw, former Secretary to the Palestine Government, and against the 6th Airborne Division are the subject of two charges of libel against Lieutenant Kenneth Alexander GourJay, of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, whose court-martial has begun. It is alleged that in a letter to the editor of his unit’s newspaper, Gourlay wrote: “Remove the 6th Airborne Division and other recently-arrived British troops from the country at once, preferably to Britain, where, if they go on behaving as they are allowed to behave at the moment, there will be such an outcry as will get it stopped immediately.” It is also alleged that Gourlay, in another letter to the same editor, said: “Let the entire British Administration in Palestine, from Sir John Shaw downward, be recalled and inquiry made into their trusteeship. The results, no doubt, would be even more revealing than the Nuremberg trials.” The Court rejected a defence submission that the charges were bad in law. The defence claimed that under English law it is impossible to libel a body of men, and that Sir John Shaw was mentioned only as a figurehead for a body of men. The Judge Advocate said that this did not apply, as this was a case of criminal libel.

The defence also submitted that the military condoned th e alleged offences because the article was written on January *lB and Gourlay was not arrested until April 2, and in the interim he was appointed editor of the unit newspaper, was asked to speak in a debate on Palestine, and was informed that he had been recommended for a captaincy. Also, the article complained of was written at the invitation of the then editor of the unit newspaper, who said that headquarters sanctioned the article. The Court rejected the defence submission of condonation.